


Parlor Tricks and Other Means of Getting Through to Sunday

by stilitana



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Artistic Liberties, Developing Friendships, Guilt, Multi, Post-Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 22:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16711015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: Abernathy gambles his life on a harebrained plot to find out what happened to Graves. Misadventures ensue.





	Parlor Tricks and Other Means of Getting Through to Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, and happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it.  
> Some notes on this story:  
> -Takes place directly following the end of FBWFT 2  
> -I have taken many liberties with Abernathy's character to suit the needs of the story I wanted to tell. It is almost certain that everything put forth here will shortly be invalidated by film 3 but that's alright, for the time being I'm amusing myself with my little tale. I only hope it amuses some of you also.  
> -I do not own anything, Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts belong to J.K. Rowling, the only profit I'm deriving is my own enjoyment.  
> -More tags will be added as I go.
> 
> I enjoyed this movie a lot but it also left me confused and troubled. I don't know that I quite understand why a lot of things happened the way they did. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it's often the things that confuse and trouble me which inspire fics like this one.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Please feel free to leave a comment as they make my day. You're welcome to find me on tumblr at [stilitana](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/)

I

            The day Porpentina Goldstein was restored as an Auror was the day Abernathy lost the will to live. This was no coincidence. No more troublesome Tina to keep a sharp eye on, no more satisfied rush as he found out yet another little infraction and reported it to his supervisor, who never failed to skewer him with a disgusted, wondering look.

            _Nobody likes a nark, Abernathy. Nobody likes a kiss-ass, either._

            Well, that was just his own piss-poor luck, wasn’t it, because he was both, and little else. He didn’t realize this until he came to work one day and caught himself grinning and rubbing his hands together like a Sunday-morning cartoon villain, practically salivating at the thought of ratting Tina out yet again—only to find an empty room. No more Tina. She was back in the field, a full Auror, and he—he was staring at his empty hands, blinking bewildered eyes, and all the air just rushed right out of him, he deflated like a stuck balloon, and in one wild violent moment he thought, _if only something could fall down and hit me already, and let it all just end._

            He looked up. No pianos or anvils or chandeliers were crashing down.

            He looked around. Everybody else was walking briskly along as usual, heels tap tap tapping, eyes staring straight ahead, every moment efficient and without hesitation. Nobody else was standing around and gawking. They had an admirable economy about them in the way they spent their energy so frugally—nobody ever stopped to chat, for instance, at least not to him, They had more important business to take care of, and here he was, still standing around and wasting air and good Ministry time.

            If only somebody would just take him by the hand and tell him what to do, he could move again and feel like himself again, only he didn’t know who exactly that was, so if not himself then at least like a person, some person, any person. If somebody would only hand him a mop and point to the mess and say, in a firm and unyielding and perhaps somewhat paternal voice, there’s the mess, Abernathy, be a good boy and clean it up, would you? He’d kiss their shoes. Really, he would, because what was he, without mop in hand and mess to clean?

_And doesn’t the voice he’s imagining sound remarkably like Graves?_

            Then somebody really did grab him by the elbow, and before the day was through he had a new ward to keep an eye on. This one just happened to be Gellert Grindelwald.

            Abernathy almost requested a job transfer. He had never once done so before, had always without fail done as he was told, because very few things could be counted on to feel good, and he felt good when he did his job, and if a little praise got tossed his way, that got him through to Sunday. But Grindelwald made his skin crawl. He felt dirty and wrong and frightened, standing on the other side of the door.

            And then Grindelwald opened his mouth and began to speak, and the words flowed like ichor.

            Abernathy faced forward and did not react. He tried to think about the book he was reading or the film he’d seen the other day, but it was no use—the words crawled in like worms burrowing through the skin into the soft flesh of the apple. He began to listen, and once he began, it was difficult to stop.

            It was so ridiculously easy, getting into the minds of some people. People with prejudices, greedy people lusting after power, people who felt spurned and wanted revenge, people who took pleasure in violence.

            Looking back, Abernathy could trace with sickening ease how he had been courted. Grindelwald’s tactics were plain if you were looking for them—how he eased the vulnerable into the fold, flirted with and petted and groomed until what was once extreme seemed commonplace. In his case, the tempting was of another sort. The crux of the matter was this: that he was a profoundly lonely man with a character too weak to withstand much positive interest.

            Had he always been spineless, or had he ripped it out to make life simpler, because it was easy to ooze along and ride on somebody else’s coattails? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He was a coward through and through either way, the worst kind of coward.

Even so, he was no slouch. He was meticulous to a fault and he picked everything apart—he peeled back the pretty words and underneath found the rotten core festering away inside all Grindelwald’s finest sentiments.

            When Grindelwald told him to drink the potion, he drank it not because he wanted to, but because he had been told to, and there was pleasure there, in doing exactly as he was told and doing it well.

            Somewhere out there Graves was either dead or alive, and only one man knew which.

 

II

            At least, that was one way the story might be told.

            The trouble, of course, was that Graves was gone. Graves with his well-cut suits and handsome, sturdy silhouette, with the iron confidence in his voice whenever he gave an order that came from the utmost certainty that it would be followed—and of course it always was, by Abernathy at least, because he never could do anything but fall in line when somebody spoke to him in such a way. It was a real thrill, getting bossed around by Graves. No one bossed him better, in fact.

            It was all Grindelwald’s fault—if he hadn’t come around, Abernathy would still have his hands full supervising the Goldstein sisters, and Graves would be here demanding coffee and all sorts of paperwork neatly sorted and signed on his desk at unreasonable hours, and Abernathy would be far too busy to think anything unpleasant.

            Graves wasn’t quite like other bosses he’d had, who were smug and arrogant and sadistic in their dealings with peons like him. Graves at least had some baseline respect for the little guys, didn’t try to belittle him if he was a little late with a paper, didn’t ever mock or otherwise demean him with asinine tasks. He was a bit impatient, sure, and bossy as all hell, but Abernathy preferred it that way. Once, after he’d neatly slid a pile of manila folders onto Graves’ desk, the Auror had stopped him in the doorway.

            “Abernathy.”

            “Yes, sir? Is there anything else I—”

            Graves blinked. His brow furrowed as though he were really looking at Abernathy for the first time—which was not so far-fetched. “You do good work, Abernathy. Keep it up.”

            Abernathy nodded jerkily and turned on his heels. Out in the hall he pressed his back to the wall until his heart stopped thudding.

            The upside of being all alone was that there was no one around to tell him how horribly pathetic it was to get a high from a ‘good job.’

            And Grindelwald had the gall to sweep in and disrupt his neat little life, the structure that allowed him to move from week to week. He could hardly live through the shame of knowing he had failed to notice an imposter right under his nose.

            The official word around MACUSA was that Graves was dead. But there wasn’t any proof, was there? And nobody was doing a damn thing about it, was prepared to chalk him up to collateral damage, all because they had bigger fish to fry now that Grindelwald was in custody.

            There was only one sure way to find out.

           

III

            They cut out his tongue. He should have seen it coming. No curse was off-limits for a criminal of Grindelwald’s caliber. He had not known he could hurt in the ways that they hurt him.

            It was only a miracle that nobody suspected a thing, when Grindelwald wilted and curled up into a trembling, blubbering jelly under torture.

            He began to panic only on the carriage when the first bodies flew by the window, and he thought, _good God, he’s killing them._

            Had it not occurred to him before, that blood would be shed in this jailbreak? Surely he must have known, in some dim and unacknowledged capacity, in the level of consciousness below language where the big lumbering beasts of dreams lurk. But it wasn’t real until it was all around him, and then it was too late, and the carriage was full of water, and he knew with certainty that he was just as disposable as the rest of them, and a sort of calm stole over him as he imagined himself drowning here, because then it would all be over, and not his problem anymore.

            And then Grindelwald tore open the door and he took a great, gasping breath. When Grindelwald pulled the chain out of his mouth it rubbed against the empty space where his tongue had been.

            He did not like the look in Grindelwald’s eyes as he pulled his wand, but before he could even blink the spell was cast, and he gagged as something fleshy took root at the base of his mouth and unfurled like a pronged ribbon. His forked tongue flicked between his lips almost without his volition, a reflexive movement, a response to being startled, and the sensation of that strange appendage that was both his and not his moving as if with its own will made his stomach twist and it was another miracle that he wasn’t sick right then and there into his lap.

            _I’m marked,_ he thought. _That’s it for me. That’s as good as whatever brand got put on Cain. I’m dead, no going back._

            His tongue flicked again and he could taste the lightning and the water in the air. There was a kind of relief in condemnation. If he knew the end already he only had to live through the rest.

 

IV

            After the jailbreak, Abernathy became little more than an afterthought in Grindelwald’s schemes—which was a good thing for him, self-preservation wise, because he was a coward and squeamish as all hell. Vinda Rosier was somehow more frightening than Grindelwald himself. He watched her kill the two muggles and all he could think in his muddled, horrified mind was, _why are you here? What pushed you to this?_

            But he didn’t speak and hadn’t since his tongue was cut out and replaced.

            A cry came from the bedroom down the hall and Abernathy’s blood ran cold before he realized why and what it meant and then they were all crowded in the doorway. There was a child seated on the ground and all the air rushed out of the room and he had to keep calm, he had to stay silent, he was standing among wolves and at the first sign of dissent they would tear him apart, so when they filed out he followed and left Vinda in the room and told himself _don’t think of it, you aren’t the one responsible, not you, but her, and she alone, there’s nothing you can do. Stay focused. Find Graves._

            He tried to feel nothing. Everything was easier with practice. Soon it would be second nature. Things would get better.

            If he kept telling himself these things, they might feel true one day.

 

V

            The estate in Austria was the most sumptuous place he had ever been. There was a sterile, haunted air to its halls. It was like walking inside a crypt and the longer he spent there the stronger the urge grew to run. It had hardly been half a day and he already felt hysteria tugging at the loose threads at the frayed edges of his mind, unravelling him.

             Paris had been a disaster. He’d listened numb and stone-faced to Vinda’s hushed recounting of events after he’d Disapparated, how Grindelwald had incinerated the Aurors, and he thought, _Tina was there, wasn’t she? Oh, God, was that the same Tina, my Tina, Tina with the mustard on her upper lip and the messy hair and the constant meddling?_

            He fought to remain calm. He thought, _here it is, Abernathy, and what sort of man are you going to be now? Are you the sort who quits when the going gets rough, hm? Are you too chicken to stand by your convictions?_ Then he thought, _what convictions?_

            If he found Graves, he could go back to his thankless desk job, to being pushed around and never listened to and underutilized by hot-headed Aurors. The thought was enough to make him grit his teeth and bear the unbearable.

            He did what he was best at and made himself scarce. He crept around the property looking for signs of Graves and staying out sight and out of mind. He didn’t dare raise the question with Grindelwald; it would be far too suspicious. He couldn’t afford to give away the game yet.

            He was really starting to despair when he rounded a corner and caught a trace of a familiar perfume. His tongue flicked out immediately and he grimaced at the alien sensation, reflexive and almost entirely out of his control. Then the scent or taste or whatever it was hit the roof of his mouth and he thought, _Queenie,_ right before she came around the corner at the end of the hall and froze.

            “Queenie Goldstein?” he said. Or at least, tried to say. He winced at the foreign sensation of that horridly mobile, slippery flesh sliding around against his teeth.

            “Oh!” Queenie said, and clapped both hands over her mouth. Her eyes went wide.

            Thoughts flashed rapid-fire through his mind. _What’s she doing here? Some kind’ve mistake, she can’t be—got to get her out—is Tina here? Tina’s alive? Going to think that I’m—might try to stop me—got to keep her quiet somehow, or else—_

            “Don’t you move a finger,” she said, voice trembling as she leveled her wand at him.

            Abernathy held up his hands. “No, wait, I’m not going to—I don’t wanna hurt you, Queenie. What’re you doing here?”

            “I’d like to say the same as you, but…but you aren’t sincere, are you?” she said, her voice a breathy rasp. “You’re up to something—oh, you nasty, double-dealing weasel!”

            “Sh!” he hissed. He actually hissed, which shut the both of them up quite effectively. He clapped a hand over his mouth and took a slow, shuddering breath. He rubbed his hands over his face. They were trembling when he held them up, palms facing her. “Can we talk?” he said weakly.

            She nodded. She’d gone all pale and wide-eyed and he felt bad for frightening her. He’d always had a soft spot for Queenie, even if she did drive him up the wall. He’d had to practice a bit of occlumency just to keep her from teasing him all the time. He wasn’t all that great at it—oh, he could compartmentalize and quiet his mind alright, but he got hot under the collar far too quickly, agitation buzzing in his skull at little inconveniences like a kicked hornet’s nest. He didn’t lose his temper easily—you had to keep an even keel, with his job, and put up with a fair amount of corporate bullying—but his mind worked itself into knots.

            He opened the door into a small sitting room and held it for her, gestured her inside first. She went in willingly, giving him a confused pout as she passed by. He shut the door behind him.

            “I’m here because I wanted to be,” she said. “I chose to come. Sorry, I know you hate the mind reading, but it does save time, don’t you think?”

            “Queenie, what in the world are—”

            Her brow furrowed. “Oh—something’s very wrong, isn’t it?”

            Abernathy’s hands fisted in his hear. “Yes,” he said. The sibilant ‘s’ extended itself into a hiss. He winced and cleared his throat.

            Queenie had the pinch between her brows and the pursed lips that meant she was concentrating on probing his mind. Rather than kicking her away as usual, he let her look.

            She gave a little gasp and then a soft, sympathetic murmur. “Oh, dear, you’ve been through the ringer, haven’t you. You were worried about me and Tina? But why—oh. _Oh._ But that’s not what—this isn’t—that’s not _true._ What are you doing here?”

            “I should be asking you the same thing.”

            Queenie’s face was growing pink and her eyes were wet. She flopped down onto an armchair as a single tear overflowed down her cheek. “He said—he said all of the things I most wanted to hear, right when I needed to hear them.”

            In a moment of rare passion, Abernathy knelt down beside her and grabbed her hand between his. “Listen, Queenie—whatever he said, it’s not what you think.”  
            “He said we should be free. Free to love whoever we want, no-maj or not. I just want to be with my Jacob. That’s all I want, Mr. Abernathy.”

            Abernathy didn’t know about this Jacob but he’d never been so hard-hearted that the sight of a tearful Queenie Goldstein didn’t make something in him melt.

            “I know what Grindelwald said about no-maj’s. But it wasn’t true, Queenie.”

            “No,” she said, tears flowing down her face now as her lips trembled. “No, no, stop thinking that, stop it. That isn’t true.”

            “I don’t want to hurt you. But you have to see,” he said, and though it made him sick to his stomach, he thought about the no-maj family. “He killed them, Queenie. In cold blood. And their child. Whatever solution you’re looking for, he isn’t it.”

            She drew her hand away and wiped the back of it across her face. She sniffed and the tender, gentle bravery she demonstrated when she drew her posture up and dried her tears with all the dignified airs of royalty made his chest ache.

            “I want to go home,” she whispered. “I want to go home, Mr. Abernathy. I got so hurt and mixed up, but this isn’t—I didn’t know. _I didn’t know._ I wasn’t thinking, I shouldn’t be here!”

            “I know. You’re a good woman, Queenie. You always have been.”

            She laughed. “You never liked me. You think I’m air-headed and flighty and that I tease you too much.”

            “Well—”

            “Don’t lie, it’s alright.”

            “Maybe sometimes I think that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you, Queenie. Don’t you know that—don’t you and your sister both know that, without you two, I don’t—well, I’m not really anybody at all,” he said, giving her a weak smile and trying to wrestle his thoughts into a box so she wouldn’t be accosted by the waves of self-loathing and exhaustion which came so readily.

            Of course, she felt it anyway. “Poor Mr. Abernathy. You always were such a lonely little man,” she said, reaching forward and petting down his hair with a quick, shaky hand. “I never really understood why. You’re being very kind to me. I always thought you might be kind.”

            Abernathy looked away. If he looked at her face a moment longer he thought he might burst into flames.

            “But you’re still hiding something,” she murmured, leaning forwards. “You’re here for a number of reasons—you’re very mixed up in there—but there’s something unusual going on, it isn’t like you at all to have any sort of, you know, initiative.”

            “Gee, thanks.”

            Queenie gasped. “You’re looking for Graves!” she squealed, clapping her hands together. “Of course!”

            “Sh!” Abernathy said, his face paling as he held a finger up near her lips.

            Queenie held one delicate hand up to her lips as her eyes widened. “Sorry!” she said in a loud stage whisper. “Just—wow! Look at you, you’ve really changed.”

            “I know, don’t tease about it just now, would you?” he said, covering his mouth with a hand.

            “Oh—not that. Though that is really something, isn’t it? I mean you’re on an adventure all on your own, making decisions, taking risks.”

            He frowned up at her. “This isn’t an adventure, Queenie. It’s absolutely nothing to be proud of.”

            She grew solemn—as serious as he’d ever seen her. It took him aback for a moment, but only a moment. He always knew she had a heart of solid gold.

            “I know it’s not,” she said. “Oh, Tina—I have to go find her. And Jacob, my poor Jacob…they must be so worried, so ashamed. I’ve got to get back to them. I must have hurt them terribly. I’ve got to make it right somehow, I need to apologize.”

            “And you will. We’ll get you home, Queenie.”

            “But Grindelwald! I can’t Apparate that far, Abernathy!”

            “I’ll go with. We can’t get all the way to America, but if we maybe stagger it in two trips, we can get to London, or Paris, I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far—but that Newt Scamander, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he? If we get to him, he’ll help you find Tina, won’t he?”

            “Oh, yes, I’m sure he will.”

            “Then that’s a plan. But now, Queenie, can you try and tell me if you can sense Graves? I can’t leave until I know if he’s or if he’s, you know. Dead. I’ve come too far, and I won’t ever be in this position again. I’ve got only one shot. Grindelwald will kill me if he so much as suspects what I’m up to.”

            “Oh,” she said, biting her lip and leaning back. “I don’t know, Joey, you know I’m not the most powerful Legilimens.”

            Abernathy rocked back on his heels. His tongue flicked and he really needed to get a handle on that, seriously, he couldn’t go waving it around every time he got taken by surprise. “What?”

            “I said you know I’m not the most—”

            “You called me Joey,” he said, blinking wide, scandalized eyes.

            “Oh! Did I?”

            “Ye-es.”

            “Well, sorry, is that so bad? It is Joseph, right? It must have just slipped out, that’s what I always call you at home.”

            “You talk about me with Tina? You call me Joey?”

            Queenie rolled her eyes. “You are such a silly man, aren’t you? It isn’t weird to talk about your coworkers. It’s nothing bad, you know, just sister talk, like, wasn’t that a nice tie Mr. Trollop had on, and did you see Olga’s haircut, and Joey was quite cheerful today, wasn’t he?”

            “Well—alright, I guess, there’s not…there’s no reason you can’t do that,” he mumbled. “But, uh…Graves, Queenie. Let’s focus. No reason to doubt yourself, just give it a good try.”

            “I’ll try,” she said, voice quavering. “But why’re you so sure I can?”

            “Well—I just think you can, that’s all.”

            Queenie laughed. “You really do. You believe in me. You know, I always said you’d be fun to grab a drink with after work, and Tina didn’t believe me, but I’ve got proof now!”

            “Alright, alright,” he muttered, his face blushing red. “Just—just try and focus, alright?”

            “Ok,” she said, leaning forward and taking both his hands in hers and staring into his eyes.

            He leaned back. “What are you—”

            “It grounds me a little. It’s scary enough sometimes, when it’s just washing over me, and when I reach out, sometimes I feel a little lost. Give me a squeeze if I seem to be frightened, will you? Only don’t do it right away—I want to really try.”

            “Ok,” he murmured.

            Queenie’s gaze went unfocused and her lips parted just slightly as she opened her mind to the others around her.

            Abernathy shifted on the ground and stared at the door, expecting at any moment for Grindelwald to walk in, and what would he do then? Pretend it was just a chat between former co-workers? Would Queenie tell Grindelwald what he was up to? He certainly wasn’t going to rat her out, not this time. And if Grindelwald pulled his wand on them? Well, then it was over for sure, no doubt about it, even two to one neither of them stood a chance.

            “Stop worrying so loudly,” Queenie muttered.

            “Sorry.”

            Right. Worry more quietly, then. Don’t think about the things Picquery authorized in that cell, don’t think about your own highly fucking questionable decisions as of late, how reliant upon routine and authority your own moral backbone proved to be, do not think about the men who died in that escape attempt and your own dirty culpability in the murder of that family, and by God, whatever you do, don’t think about Graves, and the hell he’s no doubt lived through these past few months, if he’s even alive at all, oh God—

            Queenie gasped and squeezed his hands so hard he yelped. “Got him! I got him, there he is, he’s thinking of big plates of bacon and pancakes! Diner on the corner with red leather seats, coffee with—my word, he does like a lot of sugar in that, doesn’t he? Who would have guessed? Oh, he’s hurting, and—really murderously angry, but he’s not thinking of it, or trying not to, just feeling hungry, I guess, poor thing. He’s very faint—I think he might be unconscious. Under a spell, maybe, ‘cause it doesn’t feel quite like dreaming.”

            Abernathy shot to his feet. “Alive!” he crowed. “Queenie, you’re amazing, you’re an angel—can you see where he is?”

            “No, I’m sorry, Joey, I can’t, I really can’t, I’ve never been able to pinpoint where it comes from very well—it’s very faint, I’d guess on another floor, maybe several floors away.”

            “Ok, that’s alright,” he said, rubbing his hands together and rocking back on his heels. “He’s alive, and so are we, and that’s what matters, and so is Credence. We’re all getting out of here. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to plan. Good God I wish Graves were here, this isn’t—I’m not supposed to be the one making the plans, he just tells me what to do, and then I do it, I can’t—”

            Queenie stood. “He believes in you, Abernathy! Do you know what he admires most about you?”

            “What?” Abernathy said, staring at her with wide, stricken eyes. “Graves admires me?”

            “Oh, yes! It’s your tenacity, Joey! Like a punching bag—knock him down and he swings right back for another round!”

            “He’s really thinking that?”

            “Oh, sure! Now about that plan of yours, let’s hurry, because things are moving quickly here, and I’ve got to say—Grindelwald’s got big plans for Credence.”

            “Got to get that kid out of here,” Abernathy muttered. “And Graves. But…we’re not really the team to do it, Queenie. We can’t fight these guys, not head on.”

            “What if we got help? Tina was always the better dueler.”

            “Here’s what we can do,” he said, rubbing his hands together, eyes darting around the thick carpet at their feet. “You and I have got to look for Graves. If we work our way through the place, do you think you can see if you can guide us to him, if his thoughts get more clear?”

            “You want to use me like a divining rod, you mean?”

            “Well, er. Yes?”

            “It might work. It’s just challenging because other peoples’ thoughts cloud it up and turn me around, but there aren’t too many of us here. I can certainly try.”

            “Brilliant. You’re fantastic, Queenie. We’ll try and find him. We’ve got to make sure nobody knows what we’re up to. When we find Graves, we’ll…well, it’ll depend on what state he’s in, but I suspect he won’t be in any state to help us, so we’ll probably need to get away quickly. Is there any chance Credence would go with?”

            Queenie bit her lip. “That’d be risky. It could go either way, he might come along or he might tell Grindelwald.”

            “Ok. That’s a shame, but not unexpected. But we won’t really be abandoning him, just getting reinforcements. We’ll Apparate out with Graves. I’ll make sure you get safely home to your sister. You’ve done nothing wrong, there shouldn’t be any trouble. I’ll turn myself in—but only to Tina, she’ll make sure to listen to what I’ve got to say, and that something’s done about it. And then—well, I don’t know what they’ll do to me then. Lock me up and throw away the key, probably, but that’s alright, it’s nearly finished now.”

            “They won’t lock you up. You’re doing the right thing. You aren’t a bad person.”

            “I’ve done bad things, Queenie. Good intentions are awful currency. Let’s go and see if we can’t find Graves though, alright?”

            She held out her hand and he took it. She led him from the room and into the hall.

            “Just have to follow the sound of engines,” she mumbled.

            “What?”

            “I’ve just always thought Mr. Graves’ mind sounded like a big automobile. You know, sort’ve rumbling and low, but can really get roaring when he’s thinking hard.”

            “Oh. That’s interesting.”

            “Isn’t it? And Tina’s is like a swing or a see-saw, and Newt’s is sort’ve a hopscotch, and yours is like a caffeinated rat running around in a maze with no exits.”

            “Well, thanks very much for that flattering analogy.”

            Queenie sighed dreamily. “And my Jacob’s is so warm and sweet and comfy. So steady and sure.”

            “The sooner we find Graves, the sooner you’ll be with him again.”

            She smiled and squeezed his hand and her confidence was bracing. He thought if he couldn't be brave he might at least do a good job at faking it.


End file.
